Art Class: Composition

Hi! I repeated a lesson from the previous year but our focus this term is mostly on composition during art class. The students are familiar with the term composition because it means story writing in English class. Activating students' prior knowledge is a given when teaching something new in any subject. In fact, writing composition means putting things together in an orderly manner. You can think of it as stringing sentences such that it seems coherent and logical to bring forth ideas and structure.

Composition in Art is a similar concept in which different elements in of an artwork is combined so that its whole is greater than the sum of the parts. In Photography, there are composition rules or formula that creates interesting viewpoints to the viewer. In posters designs, prints or books, the composition can work in tandem with the content to bring out the best.

A book that shows how composition can affect the viewers is Picture This: How Pictures Work by Molly Bang. The author uses the story of Little Red Riding Hood and illustrations of graphic artworks to tell a story that engages the affective domain.

It's because of how the focus changed this time that the students were more invested in the layout of their artbooks. Rather than just separating illustrations and text on each page, making their stories seem very predicable and mundane, the current students put more thoughts into planning and making full use of the limited space which in turn produces more visual elements.

Art Class: Road Safety Signs

Hi Teachers! My colleague handed over this project to the Land Transport Authority (LTA) in the beginning of this year and walking out of the school one day, I noticed the students' drawings installed as road safety signs. This is such an innovative way to capture students' attention and ensuring their safety outside the school boundaries. 

Art Class: How to Transform Yourself into a Cyborg (Part II)

Hi Teachers! We had a good laugh in class last week. I showed everyone's work under the visualiser (document camera) and it generated much reactions.  Check out my previous post here. The children didn't mean to laugh at their peers' work in a bad way. It's entertaining to see the children imagine their friends looking like hand drawn cyborg in real life. 

The children had some practice with drawings of smaller versions of the robots before committing to drawing on the coloured papers. I find this practice useful for most art tasks as it strengthens their stamina in drawing. Some children do claim that their hands are tired from drawing after a while. The reason I use an A3-size papers is also to increase the visual impact of their efforts. They use bold chisel tip marker for better grip that also highlight the visual effects compared to just making do with pencil lines. The marker ink does bleed through the coloured papers so they put the back of their sketchbook underneath to catch the ink. 

Art Class: Comics Drawing

 

Hi Teachers! Here's a lesson for the last 2 weeks of school. It's simple to carry out and some children who might be absent during class due to the year end prize giving rehearsals can catch up easily through the video. The children can also choose between a 3-panel or 4-panel comic templates. 

Art Class: Colouring with Lines

 

The children are learning to colour with lines. We reviewed the different types of lines and watched a video on how to apply them in colouring. I like using A3-sized papers with the younger children as it allows them to draw sizable objects. My art tutor used to say coloured pencils are the hardest medium to master for young kids. It's quite unimaginable since it is such a common practice for children to own coloured pencils. I hardly use them in art class because first, the children would take too much effort to cover the entire drawing paper and many would complain that their wrists are tired. 

Another reason is the different brands of coloured pencils yield different amount of colour pigments. There are some types where no matter the amount of strength you exert to colour, the colours would always appear very faint. The visual impact is futile. Furthermore, they would appear almost invisible on digital images. Coloured markers were provided for the children to prevent the mentioned disparities. I want the children to feel proud of their achievements and more confident with each project.

Art Class: Drawing with Objects

Hi! My students are making drawings with found objects at home. Remember to emphasize that they should use safe items found. I got them to list some items that are suitable before the actual task. We also looked at some examples of artists' work samples. Watch the video to see my examples. 

Art Class: My Favourite Things

Jazz up the pen and paper drawing by providing children black papers and white pens. We decided on a theme, My Favourite Things, since everyone wanted to do something different. I did a sharing of all their work under the visualiser There was a boy who requested for the spelling of some types of dinosaurs and I replied that I don't know how to spell! Anyway, we looked it up on the search engine and he pointed out the correct words that he saw. Poring over their drawings is so enjoyable 😻

Art Class: Exquisite Corpse Drawing Game

Hi Teachers, my students are playing a drawing game in class. I've adapted the collaborative feature to individual work. The A3-sized drawing papers are cut lengthwise for this activity. Watch the video to find out more!

Art Class: Emotions

When people say that you have to know your students as a teacher, it's really not just about understanding their ability and skills in executing the artwork. Often, it's also about understanding the emotional aspect. Dr Tim Elmore, author of Generation iY: Our last chance to save their future, wrote that "most young people are advanced biologically and emotionally backward". In other words, their emotional maturity is not as advanced as their biological, cognitive and social aspects. In 2003, MOE introduced social and emotional learning (SEL) into schools to improve the current status of students' social skills. I've met many children who are so advance in their academics but they struggle to self-regulate their behaviour. On the other end of the spectrum, I have children who are so uncertain of themselves that they tried to seek my approval at every stage of their artmaking process. Thus, I like to incorporate discussions about human's emotional responses such as anger and fear of failures. 

In this unit, we discussed human emotions through Pablo Piccaso's The Weeping Woman (1937) and Edvard Munch's The Scream (1893). Conversations revolved the artist's chosen palette and non-verbal language of humans and animals. We started with blind contour drawing and the children worked in pairs to observe each other. The drawer poked their pencil through a paper plate to prevent them from looking at their drawings. They were encouraged to do drawings of their friend's front view, side profile and a freestyle. Next, they do individual drawings of a self-portrait by looking in the mirror each.